This invention relates to rands for gaiters to be located on boots or like articles of footwear, particularly walking and climbing boots.
When walking in for example wet, muddy or snowy conditions such as occur in mountaineering, hill-climbing, fell-walking and like activities, it is desirable to wear gaiters over boots with a view to preventing the ingress of water, mud or snow into the boot while at the same time protecting the upper of the boot.
Until recently, such a gaiter has commonly comprised an open-bottomed legging the bottom of which is secured to the sole of a boot by means of straps, wires or other tensioning devices, the legging extending upwardly to cover the upper of the boot and the lower region of the wearer's leg. Such an arrangment successfully prevents direct ingress of undesirable elements into the upper of the boot but the seal between the open bottom of the gaiter and the boot is not such as to prevent said elements making their way up between the gaiter and the boot upper. Thus the boot upper and laces are prone to undesirable wear while the elements eventually make their way into the boot.
Further, the means for attaching the established gaiters to boots are often complex and expensive and are such as to exert a drag effect on the feet of a wearer on walking through mud, snow or the like.
More particularly, the means for attaching the gaiter to a boot commonly comprises a length of wire housed in a seam formed around the open-bottom of the gaiter together with a strap attached to the wire. In order to tension the wire around the welt of the boot, the strap is pulled and is then passed under the instep of the boot and secured to the gaiter by a buckle or like arrangement. In an alternative arrangement the wire may be tensioned by means of a screw clip, requiring the use of a screw-driver to effect the attachment.
It will be appreciated that the presence of straps, buckles, screw clips and the like all contribute towards the cost of the gaiter and are all prone to wear and damage which could result in repair or replacement of the gaiter being necessary.
Furthermore, the tensioned wire does not and cannot engage with the necked part of the boot between the sole and the heel thereof with the result that, as mentioned above, mud, water, snow and the like can make its way up the gaiter between the gaiter and the boot.
Recently there has been introduced a rubber rand of generally oval configuration the outer periphery of which is sewn to the open-bottomed end of the legging, the rand having formed therein an aperture across which extends an instep strap defining front and rear openings for the sole and heel of the boot respectively. In use of such a rand, the boundaries of the front and rear openings are stretched to extend around, and make sealing contact with, the sole and heel portions of the welt of the boot respectively with the instep strap of the rand extending underneath the boot between the sole and the heel thereof.
Such an arrangement provides an effective seal all the way round the welt of the boot such as to prevent the ingress of undesirable material between the boot and the gaiter whereby the wearer's foot remains dry and the boot upper and laces are protected to give added life thereto. Further, the absence of buckles, clips and like securing means reduces the drag on the boot compared with the above-mentioned established arrangements.
However, retention of the rand on the boot is dependent upon the stretch of the material of the rand. Whilst suitable for boots with a stiffened sole construction where little bending of the sole occurs during use, such rands, when applied to boots or like articles of footwear having flexible soles, having a tendency to peel away from the toe of the boot on bending of the sole, thus exposing the boot upper and laces to the elements and defeating the purpose of the gaiter.